Welcome to the US News & Politics forum. This board is specifically for discussion of and debate about issues relating to the United States, and the political ramifications of these issues.

This is by design a contentious board. Discussing and debating politics always is contentious and people tend to have strongly held views. This is fine. It is expected.

But disagreeing without becoming disagreeable is an absolute necessity here! You will find others here with whom you do not agree; please be courteous to them, even if you find their political views offensive. You are invited to make your case or refute other views, but please focus on discussing ideas and do not make negative comments about other members. Ideas, opinions, positions, interpretations, etc., are all totally fair game for verbal shredding. Individuals are not!

There are a few topics which do not belong on this board. To discuss abortion, please visit Abortion Debate. To discuss news and politics related to the Middle East, please visit Middle East News & Politics. To discuss issues that relate to other countries, or the world in general and not just the United States, please visit World News & Politics.

To avoid having your posts removed, please read the Rules of Conduct before posting. It is also important to avoid quoting a post that breaks the rules. When that happens and the post that violated one of the Rules of Conduct is removed, posts that quote or refer to the removed post end up being removed as well.

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You can also post about tech issues, and raise questions, on the Beliefnet Knowledgebase Group. The group is open to everyone; it's a good place to compare notes with fellow members.

Please remember that it is a violation of the Rule of Conduct governing courtesy to other members to refer to any member(s) as "RTP/er", "racist," "woman-hater", and other such negative personal comments.

These terms (and others like them) may be used to refer to people in the world generally. But they may not be used to refer to any Beliefnet member.

We are listening! Problems, complaints, other issues? Send us a message at Beliefnet_community.

Note that the preceding post applies to all negative personal comments about others - from the conservative side of the aisle as well as the liberal/progressive, centrist, libertarian, etc., sides of the aisle. Negative personal comments about any member's political positions, views, stances, affiliations, etc., are not permitted, period.

Thank you so much.

We are listening! Problems, complaints, other issues? Send us a message at Beliefnet_community.

Members are welcome to post videos in their opening posts and other posts.

But please remember that many other members cannot or will not load videos. Yet these members may have things to say on the topic of the thread.

So while a video may initially be the topic of the opening post of a thread, discussion by members who have either seen or not seen the video will also be legitimate topics for discussion on a video-based thread. Videos, like other linked content, should be used as support for an opinion, presentation or argument. So we recommend that videos by accompanied by explanatory content and/or content summation.

We are listening! Problems, complaints, other issues? Send us a message at Beliefnet_community.